Todd Terry
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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[Bob Cole] “But does anybody have an insight into why Mickey Mouse is still selling teeshirts?”
It’s one of those things that is inexplicably ingrained into children somehow… they have been fed the marketing Kool-Aid to such a degree that kids still love Mickey, even though most of them have never seen a Mickey Mouse cartoon.
Other examples abound…
Other than Michael Phelps (who I was disappointed to read that he ate five Big Macs at a sitting once), I don’t know any adults who would touch McDonald’s food with a ten-foot pole. Yet children love the place… for them, it’s the place to be.
Ok, their french fries are good.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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When using the Canon in one of the auto-exposure modes, this knob lets you tweak the exposure to your liking.
For example, if you are shooting a subject against a predominantly black or dark background, when the camera auto-exposes for the entire frame your subject may be overexposed. Likewise a subject against a bright background may be underexposed. You can use the AE shift knob to compensate for that, basically it moves the “average brightness” reference point up or down.
This only works in auto-exposure modes, of course. If you shoot in full manual mode (as the good lord intended), you can turn the AE shift knob all day and it will do absolutely nothing.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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You shouldn’t need any diffusion for the Kinos that will be washing the greenscreen, provided you are able to put them far enough away from the screen that you get nice even lighting with no hotspots.
As for diffusion for the Divas for the talent, just depends on what look you are going for. The Divas will be fairly soft (much softer than a hardlight), but not quite as soft as, say, a medium or larger softbox. If you want them softer than they naturally are, you can diffuse them.
I personally like something much more directional and controllable (and with more punch) for backlighting than flos can normally provide, that’s why I suggested a different instrument for the backlight. If you are using tungsten-balanced bulbs in your Kinos then your Arri 150 might be sufficient. If you are using daylight bulbs in the Kinos (which is what I suspect you will be doing), then you will probably need to kick the backlight up to the Arri 300 since you will lose some punch from it as it will need to be gelled blue for daylight (probably either 1/4 or 1/2 CTB).
Hope that helps,
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That inventory should be more than sufficient for small greenscreen interview setups…. obviously using the 4-bangers for the screen and the Divas for the talent. Kinos are a very good choice for greenscreen work.
I’ve heard (although never personally experienced) that Kino 4x’s and Divas have a slight color vairance… but I doubt it would be enough to worry about, especially since you are using one kind for the screen and the other for talent.
You’ll probably also want some kind of backlight… I wouldn’t suggest a Kino but rather some kind of directional hard-throw instrument. Probably something small, like a 150w HMI, or maybe a 300w tungsten fresnel with a bit of gel… probably 1/2 CTB. Or obviously an un-gelled instrument if you’re going with tungsten-balanced bulbs in your Kinos.
You could also benefit from having a reflector or just a 4×4 bounce card handy.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I’d contact a company that happens to be here in my hometown (Huntsville, Alabama), Theatrical Lighting Systems, Inc.
They are a gigantic stage/theatre/venue lighting company… and they provide lighting to theatres, concert halls, touring rock shows, all that kind of stuff. They have an extensive rental inventory and ship stuff all over the world every day.
It’s worth yelling at them, if only for advice… or they may have exactly what you need.
Find them at https://tlsinc.com
You could call them and ask for “rentals” and speak to a guy named Shannon would could probably help you… but in your case I’d ask for David Millie (the company president) whom I’m sure would be glad to help…. very knowlegable, too, about what’s out there. He’s the top dog, but not an office jockey… not above driving a truck or hanging an instrument himself when needed, so he know’s what he’s doing.
Their website is a bit lame, but they really are quite a large and professional company. They are where I get my HMIs if I have a big shoot and need that one extra 1200w or Joker-Bug… although their specialty is definitely theatrical lighting, not film. Although in your particular case, that’s a good thing.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I’d give a Photoflex softbox a try. I have several Photoflexes and really like them. They aren’t quite as well made as Chimeras (but close), but cost a lot less…
And Photoflex has speedring connectors for just about every particular instrument head out there… Lowels included.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I agree… sounds like a job more than big enough that you need a DP or gaffer to come in and at least eyeball it.
Also, I couldn’t tell from the description whether your windows (and doors) were real windows to the actual outside world, or if they are just windows in a set wall that will also need lighting attention from the other side.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Christopher Wright] “SAG…you will have to submit a script to them before they will approve their members working on anything.”
Huh??? Is that right? I’ve never ever once submitted a script to SAG, and never had them request one. I’m not saying Christopher is wrong, just saying that’s never happened to me.
Degree of helpfulness also depends on which local office you are dealing with. I’m afraid that in general I have not found them nearly as helpful as Christopher. NY and LA, they semi have their act together. Other locals (Nashville, Atlanta, etc.) are much more haphazard and you usually end up talking to five people before you finally get one who sorta knows what you are talking about, and then still isn’t very helpful. Sorry to be on a bit of a soapbox, but personally I’m a bit of a non-fan of SAG… they should try to make it easy to hire their members, but most of the time they just make it harder. And I speak from experience on both sides of the table, not just as a producer… I’m a SAG member myself.
[Christopher Wright] “We still can’t screen a very good short film I shot and edited, because the “producer” didn’t get the SAG clearances ahead of time”
I don’t quite understand that either. Even though they’d like to think that they do, SAG has no authority over producers. Only actors. If a producer wants to hire a SAG actor but is only going to pay him in paperclips and a pat on the back, if the actor accepts that deal the producer is in the clear. SAG won’t be happy about it, but there’s nothing they can do to you. There’s no SAG Jail for them to put you in. Now, they might make the red tape mountain higher on the next project… but that’s one of the reasons that most production companies make one film only (and re-form a “new company” for the next one, and next one, etc.).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Yeah, all the usual tricks are always in play, but still it is hard to estimate and no one ever seems to know anything about the buildings that we seem to find ourselves in (“Breaker box? What’s that?”).
Biggest challenge is when using 1200w HMIs (which I do frequently). They pretty much have to fly solo on their circuit. If you happen to be on a 15amp circuit, there can pretty much be absolutely nothing else on it.
The good news is apparently something does exist that does what I was talking about. $1500 is a bit steep… but I’d pay it for a device that does that if it really works.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Well, like Rick, I’m probably not going to give you the answer you want to hear. Starting from complete scratch like that with a blanket “I don’t know anything about this, what all do I need?” is not quite like asking how to perform heart surgery over the phone… but it’s not that far from it either.
Noting that:
1) You have fairly sizable stage space, considering that you have a permanent 36′ green screen…
2) You have NO lighting in the studio…
3) You admit that you are far from a lighting expert (good of you to admit, there is nothing wrong with not knowing something yet)…
4) You say the rest of the gang knows even less.
Considering those things, you could probably get plenty of advice here from the COW gang… but as expert as it may be it would all be guesses as to exactly what you need, what your space is like, what your requirements are, etc. etc. etc.
As I said, this is not the answer you want to hear (especially since you are in a big hurry), but to do it right it would extremely behoove you to bring in a professional lighting designer or cinematographer… someone who really knows what they are doing… if just for a consult to check out the space and give you some real practical advice. It would, of course, cost a bit to do that… but I can almost guarantee you that you would save money in the long run over buying a bunch of expensive instruments and going the trial-and-error route, and you would no doubt get better results.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com